Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany Documentary

Hello there, happy Friday, etc! If you’re faced with an eventless weekend and have no idea what to do with all that free time, you should be able to spare an hour or so for this opaque gem of a music documentary. Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany is a BBC Four production and, more importantly, an in-depth look into how epic bands like Can, Kraftwerk, Faust, and Neu! came into existence. It has it all, basically: there’s Holger Czukay explaining how David Niven who, after witnessing one of Can’s live shows and being asked what he thought about the music, had said: ‘Oh, I thought it was great! But I didn’t know it was music…’; you have the charming acid heads from Faust who reluctantly reveal that one of the reasons behind their fall-out with Virgin Records was that Richard Branson’s English mint chicken grossed them out. And then there’s Iggy Pop declaring his love for Neu! while wearing a tiny vest that occasionally reveals the perpetually shirtless, punk rock giant’s ageing nipples. No stone is left unturned.

If you’re a nerd (you’ve probably already seen this and there’s really no no need to bring this up – but anyways) there are great, long sequences where the old masters twiddle the knobs on oscillators and talk affectionately about their analogue gear. Needless to say, the soundtrack is no less than badass, which is why I guess I should stop writing now, so you can go ahead and watch the damn thing. Have a good one.